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	Engaging with Communities: The next challenge for peacekeeping by Oxfam International   “Listen to us to protect us” war-affected communities tell UN peacekeepers.   New Report by Oxfam calls on UN missions to engage and talk with local groups.   UN peacekeeping missions worldwide – one of the key instruments to protect civilians trapped in armed conflicts - often fail to engage with the local communities they are meant to protect, according to international agency Oxfam.   In a report entitled "Engaging with Communities: The Next Challenges for Peacekeepers", the relief group says that the willingness to engage with communities and take robust action to protect them, vary from one missions to the next. The call comes as the United Nations is debating in the Security Council on November 22 around how best to protect civilians and improve its peacekeeping operations.   Oxfam says that due to a lack of clear guidelines, poor training and preparation of personnel, many battalions on the ground had different interpretations of what "civilian protection" actually meant and the ways to implement it.   "Still in 2010, after years of experience from Kosovo to Congo, the way the international community responds to the major trouble-spots is still inadequate. While the UN Security Council is prioritizing protection of civilians in their mandates, not all missions are doing it in the ground," said Kirsten Hagon, Oxfam"s Head of Office in New York.   "Communities are telling us that they want to talk and connect with peacekeepers. They feel at a loss as to why UN missions will talk to government officials but often fail to even sit down with them. Local communities are best placed to explain what needs to be done for them to feel safe. Peacekeepers need to listen to them."   Oxfam"s report is based on field research in DRC and southern Sudan and on Oxfam"s extensive field experience. Its findings are the result of interviews in southern Sudan and the DRC with conflict-affected communities. The aid group also conducted interviews with representatives of local and regional government, local NGOs, police, the military, as well as both representatives of peacekeeping missions, UN humanitarian programs and agencies.   "The debate at the Security Council on protection of civilians is an opportunity for the UN to give clearer direction to peacekeepers to engage with communities as an essential part of protecting civilians," said Hagon.   The report calls on simple and effective steps to improve the protection of civilians such as for missions to be results-driven, engage with local groups, boost the number of women in UN missions, improve patrols or to establish hotlines between communities and UN missions.   Hagon: "For any major emergency, civilians are always the ones that suffer the most. They bear the brunt of every single crisis. As UN missions aim to protect the families and communities affected by conflicts, engaging with them is the least they can do." Visit the related web page
	Schools shut as fear drives teachers away by IRIN News Pakistan - Peshawar   The local school in Wana, the main settlement in Pakistani"s South Waziristan tribal agency, has been closed for several months, and the children only come to play games in the compound.   "We have no teacher at the school," Rida Ali, 8, said. "So we just play or do chores at home." The teacher who taught them before insecurity shut down schools in the area lives only 1km or so away, but is unwilling to come to work. The children in Wana have not attended class since November.   "Due to security issues, teachers, especially female ones, are not going to class and this affects the education of girls," Syed Fawad Ali Shah, emergency education officer for the UN Children"s Fund (UNICEF) in Pakistan, told IRIN.   According to media reports, fear of the Taliban has meant many teachers have not gone back to work even in areas like Swat, which are now clear of militants.   "I love teaching, but I will never teach again. My husband says I must not do so as it is too dangerous," Aima Malik, 25, said from the Khyber Agency where she had taught at a school for girls from 2006 to 2009. "Fewer and fewer women are ready to teach any longer," she added.   "It is better that they be safe and learn how to cook or sew at home," said Maryum Bibi, a mother of two teenage daughters living in a rural area on the outskirts of Peshawar. Her daughter, Jamila, 13, dreams of being a teacher but now says: "It seems I will never even complete my matriculation."   Abdul Monib, a secondary school teacher in the Bajaur Agency, told IRIN: "As a teacher, I always feel sad when pupils drop out before completing their education. Now so many can no longer continue because their families need them to work. Others fear the classroom because of bombings in the past at schools and refuse to come any longer."   The insecurity is affecting literacy rates "Barely 1 percent of women are literate in these areas," Roohi Bano, regional manager for the Peshawar-based NGO Khwendo Kor, which works for the education of girls, told IRIN.   "It has always been difficult to find teachers in these parts. Few women are educated and families prefer them not to work. The situation that has now arisen following the reign of the Taliban will make matters even worse, with fewer and fewer women wishing to take up this work," said Azra Khan, headmistress at a private school in Peshawar.   In some cases, she said, threats had been made even against teachers in big cities. "At least two of my teachers no longer wish to work here," she added.   The problem is compounded by the reluctance of parents to allow men to teach girls. "My husband has insisted we withdraw our daughter from her school because there are some male teachers there. He has orthodox views and says this is unacceptable," said Zakia Bibi, 40, from the town of Mingora in Swat.   Other factors have also affected education. "There are many families who have suffered financially, using up their savings during the displacement and unable to find jobs now, even when they have returned," said Ahsan Ullah, 40, who runs a small shoe-making factory in the South Waziristan agency. He says he receives "dozens" of requests for jobs each week, but cannot accommodate more workers.   In the town of Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkh"wa, Zainab Bibi, from the Orakzai Agency, wonders how to educate her four children. Her husband was part of the Taliban force in the area. "I fled on my own, with the children, in 2010, when fighting became fierce," she said. "Some relatives helped us. I have not heard from my husband since then; my two older boys, aged 14 and 15, go out to work at an automobile workshop to bring in some kind of income - but I am desperate to see them back in school."   Bibi is also concerned that unless they are educated, the boys may be tempted to join the Taliban. "A gun is a huge attraction for a young boy," she said.
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